DD not being allowed to do Triple Science, really wants to, anything we can do?

There is also the factor that other students predicted 7s may have applied and been turned down - so even if the class isn’t rammed full, it might be overfull if the policy changed.

It’s not uncommon in grammar schools to not offer foundation papers.
No one took foundation papers at my school with was a very academic grammar. They certainly wouldn’t have allowed a pupil to select a subject with the intention of doing only the foundation level.

What rubbish. Good lord.

You can do any one of those separate sciences at Foundation level if it is too hard.
And each is only worth 1 GCSE. So actually better to do this if you have one weak one, as you can get 885 instead of being stuck with 2 6s.

My son is doing triple science at his school and they have 2 hours on top of normal lesson 1 hour spread over a week in tutor group and 1 hour after school. He's predicted 9's and his 1st set of mocks he got 7's in biology and chemistry and 9 in physics.

It was only the children at the end of year 9 in top set and got good results in the end of year tests, were offered the chance to do Triple Science.

Separate science is actually three GCSEs (if all are taken which is usual in state schools).

Double science, which the OP’s dd has been offered, is worth two GCSEs.

No one does a single science GCSE anymore AFAIK.

In fact if a candidate is weak in one science triple can be better. 8, 8, 5 with 5 in physics is perhaps better than 6/7 esp if wanting to take A level biology.

Grest post @Newbutoldfather but hands off extra French lessons 🤣🤣

@redskydarknight is right - how triple is offered at the school is a crucial factor.

Ex Science teacher here. I'd push for a reason for the grade 7 cut off . A couple of reasons for the cut off may be firstly, the class is literally full, our triple class was 33/32 seats... had to have one child rotating seats/ at my desk if nobody was off school that lesson.

The second may be timetabling, it may be that that there isn't actually many (or any!) additional lessons timetabled in for the triple class (can often be the case due to teacher shortages) in which case I would agree that your daughter may struggle with that pace compared to an 8/9 student, especially since the school won't be sure as to how much overlapped gcse content was covered at previous school in ks3.

The first reason school can't do anything about, but you could ask to be considered to move up if anyone leaves and she self teaches the additional content. The second you may be able to convince them if you agree to private tuition for example.

I wound challenge this. My son is on for 7s and we fully expect him to do triple science

I was actually thinking it was the number of seats in the classroom. It can be something like that.

OP Why does she want to do triple? You can go on to A Levels with double.

DD’s school suggested to us that they dropped to combined science after his y11 mocks. Theu decided not to (and got three 7s in the end) but, crucially, they’d been taught throughout on the assumption that they would do triple.

OP, you could suggest to the school that she starts off doing triple and then opts to do combined if it’s not going so well at certain stages?

I would challenge

At DS's school one third of the students start triple science. They are re-assessed after their Christmas mocks in Year 11. Students who achieve 7,7,6 are allowed to continue, those who do not are "encouraged" to swap to the trilogy. I think this is a sensible approach.

My daughter did triple science at gcse and in her school it was only offered to children over a certain grade . A few of her friends started it and then was removed by the teachers after a few weeks . My sons was given the option to do triple science and he did got 6s in them all but didn’t really like it.
You need to complain to the school if she’s expected good grades then don’t see the problem.

sal

It should be said that, although a 7 is a low A in old terms, it is only medium strong at best.

If you go on to take a Physics A level (a subject I taught) after achieving a 7 at GCSE, the correlation with A level grades suggests a 13% of A* or A, A 23% chance of a B, a 30% chance of a C and 34% chance of D or worse.

I honestly don’t think there is any point in studying triple award just because you can. You should either be genuinely passionate about science or want to study if at A level.

The double award is a much fairer challenge given the teaching time allocated and is plenty rigorous and deep enough for most students. Unfortunately for Science teachers most schools don’t allocate us enough time, with Maths, English and (maybe strangely) French gobbling up the most time (it isn’t hard to give great added value if you get lots of time).

It's because it would be too hard for her. I know it seems unfair but the physics element is difficult. That's why they're for 8/9s. Better to pass a general.science gcse than to fail a separate science that's worth 2 gcses.

It's always been the case in "some" schools.
Personally these are the ones that I would avoid if I had a science oriented DC.

OP needs to clarify whether triple science is covered in the same time as allocated for combined, or whether it counts as an extra option, so allows for more time.

In the second scenario, there is no additional workload over any other GCSE. For a student that "gets" science, it may even be less.

I think it's always been like this tbh. In my school, many moons ago, only top set did triple.

Absolutely fight for it, flight paths are shit nonsense and have been dropped by most schools, I am pretty sure I know which York school it might be as one of their slt was a flightpath lover,( not sure if they are still there but the type whose legacy would run on) bloody coloured stickers on every kids book.
They shouldn’t be basing it on prediction grades anyway, her current performance would be a much better discriminator.

This science gatekeeping makes me so cross and it seems so many schools do it. I have 33 students in my triple class with predictions between 4 and 8. It's entirely possible.

Is she really, really sure she wants to do triple? Does she have an older friend or sibling who has done it under the 2017 exam specs so she knows how demanding it is? The workload is immense. At my school there’s always a number of students who love the idea of triple in Year 10 but the reality has broken a fair few and they end up moving to combined in Year 11 to save their mental health. Chemistry especially seems to be a real shocker.

Couldn’t agree more.

All kids should be encouraged to do Science, especially if they are enthusiastic!

As I have stated before, we put no restrictions on who does the Triple course. If they’re keen, they can do it. If they need some extra support, we provide it.

Urgh my text accidentally bolded but hopefully point was understandable. Basically a 7 is a v good grade and she also might do way better than her target, which the utter madness of flight paths fails to take account of.

Stand your ground if you can.

A 7 is a high B to low A in old money. An 8 is an A to A* star in the old system. A 9 is top of A star to sort of A *. The letters and numbers don't exactly align as the government wanted a grade to be even higher than A star to combat grade inflation.

Flight paths are absolute nonsense.

Send them this and ask how do they justify using such outdated bullshit that most good schools have moved on from?

learningspy.co.uk/assessment/how-do-we-know-pupils-are-marking-progress-part-1-the-problem-with-flightpaths/